He heard the first cop say, “Yes, you may.” The other officers moved closer to Patrick and he watched Iris and the cop talking but could not hear their words. They stood by his car just out of the flood of the headlights. The cop had that feet-spread, arms-across-the chest stance that looked nonnegotiable. Patrick saw the red, white, and blue bands of light flashing across their bodies. He looked toward the Galleon and saw that the door was open now and there were men looking up and down the street. He tried to count how many drinks he’d had and could not. Iris came through the flashing lights, walking fast with her hand out, palm up. Patrick saw the men outside the Galleon looking his way. “Keys,” she said. “Now.”
Patrick held out the truck keys and saluted the officer partially visible in the whirling colored lights.
Chapter nine
Ted quit the grove work at noon and drove to Oceanside. He stepped inside Open Sights gun store and range, saw the glass counters along three of the walls, heard the muffled gunfire. The handguns were arrayed beneath the glass, all pointing in the same direction, like fish in a school. A tall man with a big head and a black suit came in. Ted thought he might have seen him around Fallbrook recently, then decided it was just his guilty conscience. Then he thought, What should I feel guilty about? The Second Amendment protects my right to keep and bear arms.
He looked through the safety window at the range shooters blasting away. There were several men, three women, and two children who, it seemed to Ted, should be in school. He watched them through the imperfectly clear bulletproof glass, their arms extended, all wearing goggles and bulbous headgear, guns jumping in their hands, shiny cases flying. He heard the pop-pop of smaller guns, then the booming thunderbolts of the Magnums. Through all the soundproofing, he thought. What power. With the glass before him it was like watching on a monitor or TV or through the windshield of his taxi, thus hypnotic. He wanted to polish the safety glass so he could see better.
“May I help you?”
“I hope so. I was robbed at gunpoint three days ago. I’m looking for a gun.”
“I’m sorry that happened. I hear stories like that a lot these days. I can help you be better prepared for that kind of situation.”
“I’m Ted.”
“Kerry.”
Kerry was about Ted’s age — assured, muscular, and friendly — and Ted wished he was more like him. Kerry gave him general advice on reliable, effective home-protection handguns and Ted liked the look of the Glocks. Kerry removed one of them, checked the chamber, popped out the magazine, and set the gun on the counter. He told Ted that you could run it over with a truck, dip it in mud, and hold it underwater, and a Glock would still fire every time. He praised the.40 caliber as a versatile round, plenty of stopping power and it would carry fifteen cartridges in the magazine. He handed the gun to Ted. “It’s like having your own fire squad,” Kerry said.
“I sure could have used it a couple days back.”
“Tell me what happened.”
Ted did, feeling his anger and fear again, and his embarrassment at having been lured into the ambush.
“That shouldn’t happen in this country,” said Kerry.
“I’d like it not to happen to me again.”
“We teach weapons self-defense classes, right here.”
“I’ll take the gun.”
“You do know if you decide to purchase, there’s a ten-day wait while the state does a background check on you?”
“Right. So they can make sure I’m not a crazy.”
“We offer a free test-fire if you’re serious about that sidearm. Have you fired a handgun before?”
“No.”
“I think you’ll like it.”
Inside the range Ted watched Kerry fasten the Zombie Steve target to the motorized line and send it twenty feet out. At the bench he watched Kerry ready the autoloader. The headsets were comfortable and made the gunshots around him sound distant, but he could still feel the percussion in his body. Kerry stepped to the shooting stall with the gun, demonstrated the basic two-hand shooter’s stance: feet shoulder-wide, weight slightly forward, right elbow locked, left not, grip firm but not tight. Squeeze, he said, don’t pull. He fired one round. It took Ted a moment to find the hole, which was right through the middle of Zombie Steve’s grimacing face. Ted smiled. Kerry set the gun on the shelf and Ted stepped forward and picked it up.
He listened to Kerry’s instructions and squeezed off a round. He was surprised at the power, and at the immediacy of the recoil. A gun was a decisive thing, he realized — nothing hesitant or reversible about it. It impressed him that it could reload itself so quickly, before the bullet got to the target, it seemed. Actually hitting the target was the hard part. Even at only twenty feet away, when he got the sights lined up, all it took was a split second to be aiming someplace else — the slightest breath or random thought and the gun barrel jumped far off course. So Ted held his breath but Kerry, speaking loudly through the gunfire and protective headgear, told him, “Don’t do that, just squeeze the trigger on the exhale and it’s both eyes open, Ted, don’t close that left eye of yours, you need them both to shoot well.” Nine shots later Ted had hit Zombie Steve’s body four times, and the white paper outside the body twice, and missed the target altogether with the other three. For a split second Zombie Steve became Evelyn Anders’s campaign poster and this led to one of the body shots. Then Zombie Steve became Edgar and Ted hit the target again.
“Not bad for your first time,” said Kerry. “That Model Twenty-two in your hand is lightly used, so you’d save a good chunk of change.”
Ted bought the gun and put the ammunition in his truck. He felt more capable now, and empowered by the idea that in ten days the Glock would be his.
A few minutes later he was back in Fallbrook, heading up Main toward home. The many poster faces of Evelyn Anders looked down on him with smug condescension. The face of Walt Rood struck him as caring and reasonable. He liked the slogan, “Small Government that Works.”
Ted caught the red light at Alvarado and saw that Vince Ross Village Square on the corner was crowded. People were talking and drinking canned sodas and there was a long table with a red, white, and blue tablecloth set out with what looked like brochures and DVDs. A banner facing the street proclaimed: CARRY FREEDOM! He saw both men and women and there was something unusual about them. It finally dawned on Ted that they were all wearing holsters. No guns, just holsters. Some wore leg holsters like Old West gunmen, others had detective-style shoulder rigs, some had holsters attached to their belts. Ted saw a man wearing shorts with a large holster strapped to his calf. Some even had empty rifle scabbards slung over their shoulders. They moved with an exaggerated ease, pretending too hard that they were not doing anything unusual. Ted wondered if nudists did that. He stared until the light changed, then rounded the corner, U-turned, and parked on Alvarado.
Through the window glass he saw a man, head and shoulders above the crowd, apparently standing on one of the park benches. He wore twin leather six-gun holsters and bandoleers thrown over his shoulders. His arms were spread in oratory. Ted recognized him immediately as Cade Magnus. He hadn’t seen him in ten years and he was heavier, but had the same stocky build and bushy brown hair. He remembered that Cade Magnus had eyes just like Cade’s father — blue and clear. He had talked to them years ago, down at Pride Auto Repair, back when he was interested in the White Crusade. Now here was Cade, back in Fallbrook, a city that had rejoiced when he’d moved away.